Is Blockchain Overrated?

Abstract

Blockchain technology, after the advent of Bitcoin in 2009, gradually attained significant attention in academia and industry. Its influence grew further from cryptocurrencies and the financial sector in a couple of years. Soon many new use cases of blockchain in various areas such as supply chain management, healthcare, voting, intellectual property right management, food safety, real estate, internet of things etc. were proposed in liter-ature. Enthralled by the hype, many enterprises chose to pursue blockchain-based initiatives for their business processes. However after a period of over-excitement, now blockchain is viewed with concern because a large number of the earlier blockchain-based projects, especially those not related to finance, have not been productive. Foregoing in view, this article presents a concise review of blockchain technology, highlights its prospective impact within realistic boundaries and proposes a model to assess its feasibility to use cases before implementation, in order to embrace it prudently.